That’s not because Tony Stewart got hurt last week. That already was Roush’s view about the cars that Stenhouse loves to race and used to race for Stewart as he carved out a career path toward NASCAR.

“I’ve told Ricky that if he came to me and asked my permission, I would not encourage it,” Roush said Sunday prior to the Cup race at Watkins Glen International.

Roush isn’t alone. Richard Childress allows his grandsons Austin and Ty Dillon to run late model stock cars on dirt but their extracurricular activities don’t extend to sprint cars such as the one Stewart was racing when he broke his leg last Monday at Southern Iowa Speedway.

“At some point as their careers move on, it concerns me every time they run them (late models),” Childress said. “But they really like doing it. And I think at some point, it helps them.

“If they were running sprint cars, I would have told them ‘No’ a long time ago.”

Rick Hendrick? He talked to Kasey Kahne in 2011 about driving the sprint cars he owns. The message was the same: Please don’t.

“I’ve asked him not to do that (racing sprint cars),” Hendrick said last June. “You just don’t want to see anybody get hurt. You can get hurt doing anything. I still drive drag cars and you can get hurt doing that.

“But Kasey, he’s just so good and has such a bright future, I’d hate to see him get hurt. … I’d like to put it in writing but he wants to do it so bad. It’s something that it’s an opportunity to get hurt and I’d hate to see him get hurt.”

Team owners aren’t trying to be draconian. They just have invested a great deal of time and money — and have sponsors who are spending millions of dollars with them — to give their driver a shot at a NASCAR championship.

Even Stewart’s co-owner Gene Haas admitted Sunday that Stewart might have to change his attitude toward racing sprint cars as often as possible. Stewart was involved in three sprint-car wrecks in recent weeks before breaking his leg. Former NASCAR driver Jason Leffler was killed while racing a similar sprint car earlier this year.

“This changes the whole thing — I think it changes it for Tony,” Haas said Sunday. “We want to win championships. That’s what we’re here for.

“If something gets in the way of that, I think we’ve got to reevaluate that. But I’m not going to sit there and tell Tony what to do. Hopefully we will all come to an agreement what’s best for the team and that’s what we’ll do.”

According to Stewart-Haas Racing Competition Director Greg Zipadelli, Stewart feels if he has let his people down.

“I think Tony understands this sport,” Haas said. “He’s committed to his sponsors. He loves this sport. He loves to race.

“I think he’s going to do what’s best for SHR. We’ll see how that goes. But if you stop Tony from racing cars, that’s what he likes doing. That passion is what makes Tony, Tony.”

One of the reasons Stewart owns his own team is to have more freedom from when he raced at Joe Gibbs Racing. JGR tried to limit Stewart’s extra racing while he was there. “We had serious talks about things (with Stewart) over the years, but he had such a passion for it, it was something he felt like he really needed to be doing,” Joe Gibbs said Sunday.

“In this case, it was just something that happened. That’s part of Tony Stewart. … When we have any discussion about that (with drivers), these guys are their own men. They make their own decisions. We talk about racing and what’s smart.”

Most teams require their drivers to ask for permission to run in other series. Earnhardt Ganassi Racing development driver Kyle Larson hopes he can still race sprint cars as his NASCAR career evolves but time commitments in Nationwide have limited those opportunities this year.

“If Chip (Ganassi) feels it’s the right thing or a good thing for them to do, then we’ll normally let them do it,” said EGR President Steve Lauletta. “We certainly have conversations about it first.

“It’s a racing decision. The sponsors know we’ll do the right thing and only let our drivers do things that make sense (such as having) good equipment and being able to be competitive.”

The car owner typically determines what makes sense. Roush said he doesn’t have a problem with his drivers racing other stock cars where a driver can wear a HANS Device or another head-and-neck restraint system.

“Track time is track time,” Roush said Sunday. “Anytime they get in a competitive environment, it’s not bad.

“But I’ve had a conversation with Ricky. Series, sprint cars in particular, where they don’t have safe walls and they’ve got a high mass and they have a tendency to go airborne and go over pretty easy, I think probably we should forego the sprint-car competition for a while.”